Incident Gallery

Suffragettes Pankhurst and Gawthorpe Rutland 1907

Christabel Pankhurst and Mary Gawthorpe in the Market Place, Uppingham, holding a meeting during the 1907 Rutland bye-election. The campaign saw Mary Gawthorpe the victim of dirty tricks by supporters of the Liberal candidate, W.F Lyons. Sylvia Pankhurst later gave an account of an incident when Mary was struck on the head by a pot-egg (a china dummy egg) and knocked unconscious. Youths were apparently paid by a wealthy Liberal supporter to hurl sweets at suffragette speakers (see Votes for Women 6th August 1909) Polling was held on11th Juneand the Conservative was duly elected. Date: 1907

© The March of the Women Collection / Mary Evans Picture Library

Gallipoli - bringing in horses by Matania, WW1

Telegraph work in Gallipoli - an unrecorded incident of individual bravery. Two men of the 1st Royal Munster Fusiliers bringing two uninjured horses back to British lines during a severe Turkish bombardment. According to an eye-witness account by an officer, This incident deserves to be recorded. We were in trenches just on this side of the foreground; a four-horsed wagon containing poles for telegraphic purposes was coming over the hill, and just as it got to the crest a shell dropped near the waggon, badly damaging it and killing two of the horses. There were, however, still two horses left, and as the shaft pole was now sticking up at an angle the Turks evidently took it to be a gun and began dropping shells at a rate of four a minute. The horses seemed to possess a charmed life. Shell after shell dropped. It seemed impossible that they could live. Then through my glasses I could see two men trying to cut the animals loose. When they heard a shell coming I saw one man take cover behind a tree, and the other get behind the wagon. A few minutes later they galloped the horses bareback past our trenches amid cheers from their friends. They were two men of the 1st Royal Munster Fusiliers. They both received their promotion that evening. Date: 1916

© Illustrated London News Ltd/Mary Evans

Smyrna! A case in which, in the opinion of the British lion

Smyrna! A case in which, in the opinion of the British lion, two heads are not better than one! Cartoon about the Koszta Affair in 1853, a diplomatic incident between the United States and the Austrian Empire. The American eagle is pitched against the double-headed eagle of the Austrian Empire. Martin Koszta, of Hungarian birth, had fled to Turkey, then emigrated to the United States. He returned to Turkey (Smyrna, now Izmir), in 1853 on business, but was arrested by Austrian officers. Date: 1853

© Mary Evans Picture Library